Cloudant said this week that it is developing a data integration and visualization platform for agricultural company Monsanto.
The platform will be based on BigCouch, Cloudant's version of Apache CouchDB, an open source document-oriented database.
BigCouch extends CouchDB's functionality to include an open telecom platform application that clusters CouchDB across multiple servers to improve scalability and fault tolerance, the company said.
Cloudant said that Monsanto will use BigCouch to support its analysis of genome sequencing data for crops.
In particular, Monsanto will use the platform for multi-scale modeling that will help researchers in the plant breeding and biotechnology firm identify genetic pathways that are needed to increase yield and stress tolerance in corn, soy, and other crops.
Furthermore, BigCouch will help Monsanto researchers discover additional pipeline gene candidates in order to increase crop yields in corn, cotton, and soybeans, Cloudant said.
In a statement, Ryan Richt, Monsanto's genome integration lead, said that Cloudant is "building a distributed analysis platform that will automate [Monsanto's] genome analysis and discovery efforts."
He described the "document-oriented nature of the open source BigCouch platform" as "ideal" for Monsanto's computing needs in terms of building "integrated models of yield and other agronomic traits."